Sword of Damocles
by friendlyquark
Summary: Things are stirring in the dark. Ten2, Rose, Susan, Koschei, and the rest of the Pete's World universe are pawns in a larger game. A game that could mean the end of everything. Sequel to Jiggery Pokery.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One – The Game

The Black Guardian looked down at the chessboard with a frown. The White Guardian was leaning back in his chair, studying him with an intent expression.

They were playing on a chessboard that was, at one and the same time, both quite small and vastly huge. To an outside observer, had there been one, it would have appeared to constantly shift and change, looking like an ordinary chessboard one moment and then like a field of stars, or a planet's surface the next. Dim figures moved through the varied landscapes and occasionally one or the other player would move a finger and stars would explode, or flowers begin to bloom. The sounds of armies, clashing somewhere in the distance, hung faintly in the air along with the stink of gunpowder and singed ozone, while a single butterfly danced across the field of battle, wings aflutter.

"So, you found a way to save their race, it will change nothing," the Black Guardian assured him, but the White Guardian merely smiled. "Your champion is more vulnerable now than he ever has been. So many more loved ones I can use against him."

"More vulnerable? You think so?" the White Guardian chuckled. "I see him as being far stronger now. He has so much more to fight for."

"We'll see," the Black Guardian replied with a grim smile. "Let's see how much stronger he really is. Let's see just how long he can run." Pieces moved across the board, driven forward by his will, and the White Guardian frowned.

"Is that your move?" he asked and the Black Guardian nodded.

"This is how I choose to begin it," he answered and his eyes were hard and filled with a roiling darkness. The White Guardian sighed and nodded his assent. "Your move," the Black Guardian told him, with a face of implacable resolve, and the White Guardian waved his hand.

* * *

The Doctor watched River leave the TARDIS and felt it like a wrenching pain in his chest. She was his wife and he loved her, but she never stayed. She never explained why, though he suspected it had to do with the way their timelines never seemed to run together, always flowing in the opposite directions. He slammed his fists down on the TARDIS console and then sighed.

"Sorry dear," he apologized to his sexy, wonderful girl. She hummed at him, a warm gentle feeling in his soul. "A boy and his box." Amy's words echoed through his mind and tears leaked out. "Oh Amy," he whispered. Why did they never stay? Why did they always break his hearts?

He closed his eyes and felt something cold and hard lodging itself in his chest. He was done with this. It wasn't worth the pain. Not anymore.

* * *

The Doctor bolted upright from the dream, with his hearts pounding and sweat beading his brow. He turned and saw Rose curled up asleep in the bed beside him and breathed out in relief. She stirred and woke, blinking sleepily up at him.

"Doctor?" she asked with a yawn.

"Bad dream," he told her and lay back down. Rose scooted closer and wrapped herself around him. The warmth and comfort of her touch, coupled with the gentle reassurance she sent him through their bond, eased his racing hearts and he relaxed back against the bed.

"Da? Mummy?" a tiny figure, rubbing her eyes and yawning, stumbled into the room and the Doctor reached out and drew her up and onto the bed.

"Bad dream, Jenny?" Rose asked their daughter, who nodded and burrowed into the covers between them. They cuddled close to her, Rose somewhat awkwardly, as her pregnant belly was growing too large for easy maneuvering.

The Doctor held his family close and prayed to all the gods of space and time that his other self was sent some joy and happiness soon.

Andred soothed Finn back to sleep. The three-year-old thrashed a bit and then calmed again. Arista looked up from her bed, watching her adopted father with large dark eyes. She was nine now and Andred moved over to give her a hug and a kiss, tucking her under the covers again.

"He has a lot of bad dreams," Arista sighed out and Andred nodded.

"He's gone through a lot, you both have," he agreed and Arista gave him a sweet smile.

"Good night, Dad," she yawned and he kissed her brow.

"Good night, Rissy," he answered and then waved at the dimmer to drop the lights lower, before he stepped through the arch into the bedroom he shared with Leela.

* * *

The dome house had been expanded to add an upstairs, so that Andred and Leela could sleep near to the kids. All thirty-five of the children that had been rescued from the destruction of Gallifrey were fragile and he had wanted his two to have the added security of parents as near as possible.

They hadn't had the training and shielding they would have needed to keep the deaths of their parents away from their fragile minds. The adults around them had shielded them as best they could, but then the Lady Professor had put them in cryo-freeze and sent them out to safety. They'd awoken with far too few telepathic adults who could help them with the terrible trauma and loss that they had gone through.

"They asleep?" Leela asked from the nest of blankets.

"Finn is, but Arista is still a bit tense," he answered and crawled into bed with her. She cuddled up to him and he held her tenderly against him. "They are still pretty delicate."

"It's only been eight months, Andred, give them time. Findarian is still so little, he's too young to really understand everything. Arista's a smart sensitive child; she sees everything and soaks it all up. This is going to take time, love," she reminded him and he nodded.

"I just worry about them, I want them to have a wonderful childhood," he sighed out.

"I think you will have to settle for them being loved, cared for, and given the space to be whatever they need to be," Leela teased him and he nodded against her.

"I do need to relax," he laughed and she kissed him softly, activating the privacy screen between the kids' bedroom and theirs.

"I can help with that," she replied with a suggestive smile and Andred grinned down at his wife.

"Do tell," he chuckled.

* * *

Susan was standing in the void looking around at galaxies as they spun and danced around her. Everywhere she looked, she saw life. It teemed out there in the dark, forcing its way into existence in an infinite variety. It pulsed and throbbed and danced with the joy of existence.

However, it occurred to her that she was alone. She looked out at the vastness of eternity and saw nothing that she could interact with. She was separate, apart, and unable to breach the distance between herself and all of that life.

She was lonely. Vast, bitter, sad, and desperately alone.

Rage overcame her and she sent a wave of fire and death at all those joyful worlds. She burnt them to ash and cinders, screaming her pain at them, unheard, unseen, unloved.

Everything died and she turned to look at the wasteland around her, no happier with it than she had been with the teeming life. She was still so very much alone.

* * *

Susan woke with a gasping sob and Koschei roused to look at her in dismay.

"Susan?" he asked and she shuddered.

"A dream, I think," she gasped out and tried to slow her hearts.

He sat up and pulled her into his lap, holding her as she shivered and panted.

"You think?"

"Might have been a Vision, I don't know," she sighed out and buried her face in his chest. It had seemed so incredibly real to her. The emotions had been so intense, so deep.

"Susan, talk to me," Shay whispered and she closed her eyes.

"I think it was the Arkytior. She was talking to me somehow in images. She's so angry and so alone," she whispered and he held her tightly against him.

They were both shaken by the inexplicable dream and fell into each other, seeking comfort in the intense closeness of their bond.

* * *

Darginian dragged himself out of bed and stepped over to the window. The day was just starting to dawn and the orange light of the first sun was peeking over the horizon. He'd been dreaming, but it was already fading away.

Hedia stirred in the bed and he looked back over his shoulder at her with a feeling of warm affection. He still wasn't sure if they were dating, if they were in love, or if they were just sleeping together, but it was nice, whatever it was.

He missed Geneva though. He'd felt better when she was around. She'd been utterly solid and there for him and their teasing banter had lightened his days. Hedia wasn't much of a talker, she had other ways of communicating, he thought with a pleased smirk. Still, he felt like something was missing.

Restless, he dressed and headed out to work. He didn't know why he couldn't just be content with what he had.

* * *

Wilfred Mott was climbing a hill on an alien world. It never failed to thrill him and he looked back at the group of children following him with a bright happy smile. He wasn't quite certain how it had happened, but he had gone from having only one grandchild, to having dozens of them. Human, Time Lord, Gallifreyan, and now a few children from races he'd never imagined before were all following him.

A red-eyed albino-looking girl slipped a hand in his and smiled shyly up at him.

"Wilf?" she asked tentatively.

"What is it, Biina?"

"Are we going to learn about the moons today?" she asked and he nodded. She clapped her hands together in excitement, a gesture she'd picked up from the human children and he grinned to see it. The settlers had come in slowly at first, then at a quicker pace. Several of the races were telepathic as well and they were also adopting Gallifreyan children and helping to rear them.

Biina's parents were from a time sensitive race that was being trained by Darginian and another Time Lord survivor, Maglen, who'd been a temporal engineer in the other universe. Wilf wasn't at all sure quite what they were working on, but a big dome in the Capital was being erected to house the embryonic Time Agency and Susan's husband was making all sorts of big machines for it.

He pointed to where he wanted the telescope set up and Davian smiled and set it down. The children began setting up the chairs and putting out the blankets, little squabbles breaking out, that he gently resolved, and finally they were all settled with minimal poking and shoving.

He settled down on a chair and Biina climbed into his lap. He glanced over the group of children to make certain that they were listening attentively, and then pulled out his notepad. The Doctor had put together the graphics and part of today's lesson plan, so Wilf was wary as he activated the slideshow.

"Gallifrey's moons were actually not formed at the same time as Gallifrey was, they are both captured meteors that hit the atmosphere at just the right angle to fall into an orbit, rather than to be destroyed on impact," Wilf explained, as the screen displayed images that the Doctor had taken from his TARDIS for the lesson.

"OOOOoooohhh!" the kids sighed out as they watched the first fiery meteor smash into the ocean of air around the red planet. The lightshow was pretty spectacular, Wilf knew, he'd been quite impressed by it himself. Hanging out the TARDIS door, with Donna clinging on to him, both of them laughing, as the Doctor ran the camera, had been an amazing experience.

These kids were going to get the most incredible education ever, he chuckled to himself and he was thrilled to be one of their teachers.

* * *

"We've found twenty-seven adults and thirty-six children, if you count Davian amongst the children," Romana sighed out, tossing her scarf on the table and slumping deeper into the couch.

"We haven't picked up any more signals, though," James added and his face was creased and lined with weariness.

Susan set the teacups down in front of them and went back into the kitchen to get them some food.

The Doctor watched his granddaughter thoughtfully and sipped his own tea, while he mulled it all over.

"It's still more than I was expecting," he confessed. "For all that I would have loved to find another few thousand of us tucked away somewhere, I'm amazed that my Mother was able to do even this much. I'm grateful for every one of the survivors we did find." He paused and took another sip of tea. "Well, except maybe for Ellasiira," he admitted and James barked a laugh, splashing some of the still hot tea on himself.

"Did you all manage to repair the damage she caused?" Romana asked and the Doctor shrugged.

"Which time? Despite the addition of a full time staff of 'baby sitters' she's managed to blow up the place three times in the last year. We've moved her to her own lab on the Southern Continent, using the ruined city down there as the R and D department. We had to remove anything flammable from a twenty mile radius, but it was worth it," he told them and Romana stared at him, trying to decide if he was joking or not.

"She's really that much trouble?" James asked, rather flabbergasted by the whole thing.

"Oh yes, if it wasn't for the fact that she really is a genius, truly and incredibly brilliant, and she's been able to work out the equations on three major problems that were stumping Koschei and myself, we'd have dumped her on another planet and fled by now," he sighed. "She's the most gifted theoretical physicist I've ever met, and that's saying something, mind you. But, never, ever, ever, let her anywhere near trying to do anything on the practical end. She can't solder a wire without starting a three alarm fire, and any attempt to build something invariably ends up with an explosion, or other major bits of property damage."

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Romana asked in horror and the Doctor grinned.

"I don't need to do anything, because Malcolm has it all in hand. He's found the perfect solution to our problem," he confided to her.

"Really? What solution is that?" James asked in deepest curiosity.

"He's marrying her," the Doctor answered with a huge grin.

Romana and James stared at him for a long moment and then burst into giggles.

"Genius!" Romana chortled.

"Brilliant!" James concurred.

"Apparently he's finally found his perfect woman and she thinks he's brilliant too, so it's a wonderful match for both of them," Susan murmured as she set down sandwiches for them. "Plus, once she discovered kissing, she stopped blowing things up," she added and they all burst into giggles again.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – White Gambit

Susan had decanted the latest bunch of babies and was watching as their new parents carried them off. Their joy and excitement was contagious and she was buoyed by the happy emotions that swirled around her. She waved the last one off and returned to lab where the work continued on that project and several others.

"Susan," Martha called out, her tone flat and Susan tensed. Martha was fairly unflappable, but she'd learned to detect alarm and dismay in the other woman. When she got very calm and very unemotional, things were very bad.

"What is it?"

"I think you should see the results for this," Martha answered and Susan walked over to where she was working. Martha had been set the task of analyzing the genetic material of all the thirty-five children they'd found on Gallifrey. The older children had been able to recite their parents' names and genetic line house, but the younger ones, especially the babies hadn't that ability.

Susan sat down and read the data for one of the children. She blinked and read it again. She re-ran the analysis three times. Finally, she looked up at Martha.

"The only thing that I can think of is that Rassilon was trying to find yet another way of surviving the Time War." She looked down at her hands and thought hard. "Martha, I think it would be best if we didn't make this knowledge public. If it's just an innocent child, with none of the mind of Rassilon, then there is no reason to make life a burden."

"And if that evil nutter is inside there?" Martha asked, her face dubious.

"Then we'll have to think about what that means to us, of course," she sighed out. "I doubt though, that Great Gran was foolish enough to give her least favorite person a liferaft though." She shrugged at Martha. "Only time will tell."

* * *

Koschei looked up as the child peeked around the door. She must have been about eight, he thought, blond, green-eyed and skinny, all knees and elbows. He was working on a rather tricky bit of circuitry though, so he wasn't really paying attention.

She peered in again, he looked up, and she withdrew behind the doorframe again.

"Did you want something?" he finally asked, a trifle exasperated, and he heard the sound of small feet darting away. He thought for a moment and then put his tools down.

Walking in a manner that indicated extreme disinterest, he sauntered in the direction the child had gone. Senses alert he picked up the soft humming of her mind from a nearby tree. He walked over to it and leaned against the tree, looking out at the road and the city beyond it.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of cookies Susan had baked the day before. He put one in his mouth and he could almost hear a small stomach rumbling above him.

"Want one?" he asked, a bored tone in his voice and reached the cookie upwards into the branches. It was snatched from his fingers.

"'ankyou," came the muffled reply from around a mouth full of cookie.

"Sure," he replied, retaining his pose of disinterest.

He continued to lean against the tree, passing cookies up to the child, while eating a few himself and waiting.

Eventually a rustling and a thump announced that the little girl had descended from her perch.

"I'm Freeya," she muttered.

"Koschei," he replied, hands in his pockets, eyes on the sky.

"Was that a set of parallel circuits you were building?" she asked and he nodded.

"Yeah, I was building it as part of the defense screen for us," he replied, surprised that an eight year old would know what he'd been making. He'd have known at that age, but then he'd been a prodigy.

"Oh, wouldn't the resistance in the ionic circuits make that difficult?" she asked next and he turned and gave her lopsided smile.

"Yeah, that's why I was experimenting with different materials, trying to overcome that resistance." He looked up at the sky again and then shrugged. "I don't suppose you'd want to help or anything?" he asked and from the corner of his eye he saw her face light up.

"Yes, please, if you wouldn't mind! I'd be a big help and I won't cause any trouble!" she pleaded and with another shrug he nodded.

"Well, then, let's go back to the workshop and get to it," he answered and started walking. To his surprise, she tucked her hand in his and began skipping alongside him. Was it really so simple to make someone happy, he wondered?

* * *

Hours later he looked up and realized that the child had fallen asleep across a circuit board, her face grimy and covered in grease and dirt, an angelic smile on her face.

It tugged at something inside of him to see her like that and he rose and gently draped a blanket over her, before going back to work.

It occurred to him to wonder if anyone might be worried about the girl and he got up and peered out the door of the workshop.

Susan was coming up the path and he smiled to see her. She looked up, feeling his gaze on her and her own lips curled up in response.

"Hello gorgeous," he called and she grinned, stepping into his arms.

"Hello my love," she returned and kissed him with surpassing sweetness, driving all thought from his head.

"What brings you to my humble workshop, lovely lady?"

"Donna lost one of the kids. She was sitting today and one escaped," she explained.

"Adorable little blonde urchin, goes by the name of Freeya?" he asked and she smiled up at him.

"You've seen her?"

"No, just a wild guess," he told her just to watch her laugh and the way it lit up her eyes.

"Oh, really?"

"Aren't you going to call me a ridiculous man? I don't feel a day has gone properly unless you do," he complained and she chuckled.

"You ridiculous man," she murmured seductively and he was derailed again for a moment.

"Yeah, she's been helping me in the workshop, kid's a genius," he finally replied after he'd thoroughly kissed her.

"Freeya?" she asked, a little distracted herself.

"Yes, she's actually one of the best assistants I've ever had. Can I keep her?"

"She's not a puppy, Shay," she laughed. "But I don't see why she can't help you out if she wants to."

"I want to!" Freeya insisted and he jumped and spun around to see her standing in the doorway watching them both with hopeful eyes. Susan laughed.

"Then that's settled, you can come after classes are over, then," Susan told her and the little girl rolled her eyes.

"Do I have to go to school?" she whined.

"Yes, there is more to learn in the universe than just engineering," Susan teased and he looked at his wife in surprise.

"There is?" he teased, just to watch her roll her eyes at him.

"Yes, you!" she chided and he chuckled at her expression.

"Oh very well," Freeya sighed out gustily.

"Now, back to Donna before she has an aneurysm, Freeya," Susan instructed and the little girl darted away from them, feet pounding on the pathway like a herd of small elephants were passing by.

"She really wasn't any trouble," he assured her, watching the girl go.

"Yes, but I have things I want to do with you, husband," she murmured in his ear and he pulled her into the workshop and locked the door with a speed that surprised a squeak out of her. He pulled her into a kiss, walking her backwards towards his latest expansion to the workshop. Pushing aside the curtain, a bed was revealed to her and she laughed.

"I was getting a bit tired of the floor, my love," he informed her and she nuzzled his neck.

"I don't care where you take me, Shay, as long as you do it now," she whispered and after that, he lost all ability to speak.

* * *

Rose frowned down at her offspring from over the swell of her belly.

"That was my toaster," she pointed out and the tiny little girl had the grace to look abashed. "Hand it over." A small hand passed a rather battered looking sonic screwdriver to her mother with tears starting in her eyes. "You can have it back tomorrow, if you've been good."

"Kay, Mommy," Jenny agreed with huge tragic blue eyes. Rose was unmoved though, even when tears of remorse and loss began to well in those eyes.

"Now, go play," she instructed and watched as the child dragged her feet behind her in an attempt to engender sympathy.

"Aww…" her husband murmured and she turned and glared at him.

"Don't you dare give it back to her, or make a new one, or somehow create something similar in order to get around me, Doctor!" she warned, knowing full well how weak her husband was where Jenny was concerned.

"Of course not, dear," he answered and she narrowed her eyes in suspicion at him. He was never this compliant. He was up to something.

"Doctor," she growled.

"Now Rose, my dearest hearts, you said 'no' and I agreed with you! Isn't that what you wanted?" he asked her.

"Yes, but I don't trust you. Jenny only has to bat those big blue eyes at you and you roll over and give her anything she wants!" Rose accused and the Doctor looked at her with an expression of deepest injury.

"That's hardly true, Rose!" he protested.

A blur moved past the window and Rose heard a high pitched shriek and the roar of an engine.

"What was that?" she asked through clenched teeth.

"Well… I might have made Jenny a gravity sled…," he confessed and Rose dropped her head into her hands.

"She's not even two yet!" she groaned.

"Not to worry, my latest version of K-9 is piloting it!" he assured her. "Really Rose, did you think I'd let such a very young child pilot a gravity sled?"

"So, I punish her and you get her a dog?" Rose asked him her eyes filled with her anger and fury.

"Couch?" he asked in a tiny voice.

"Ya think?" she snarled.

* * *

Susan was dreaming, she knew that because she was standing in Grandfather's TARDIS. It was just as she remembered it from her earliest childhood. There was the old chair that Barbara had collapsed in. There was the broken clock Grandfather never really had ever fixed. The white roundels, the six sided console, it was all the same.

"Susan," her grandfather was standing beside her and she turned and knew it wasn't really him. It looked like her grandfather had in his distant youth, but the eyes were wrong. He didn't look at her with the love and affection she always saw there.

"Who are you?" she asked and the figure sighed and shook his head.

"You are too perceptive for these games, I see," he told her and shifted into the form of an old man in white robes, his gray hair haloing his head. "I am the White Guardian," he answered and she nodded.

"Grandfather told me about you," she replied and he nodded.

"That simplifies things, my dear," he nodded and began pacing about the console room, looking thoughtful. "Then you understand about the Game?"

"As much as someone with a limited mind and lifespan possibly can," she replied and he grinned at her suddenly.

"You are very wise for your age, my dear," he chuckled. "Now, the Time Lords were brought down by the machinations of the Black Guardian, he is the one that corrupted Rassilon and brought him to madness, leading to the end of your race. His was the hand that struck out at your children, seeking to prevent your resurgence."

"But why? What possible reason could he have for hating us so much?" Susan cried in dismay.

"Because you are a race that can feel the turn of a world, hear the fall of a leaf, sense the collapse of a timeline. Because you were the ones who fought entropy every day, repairing paradox, creating order out of chaos, and being everything that the Black Guardian most despises," he explained and she nodded slowly, seeing what he meant. "Already your first thought is to return to your guardianship of time. My Champion leads you in this as he has for so very long." Susan nodded, hearing the echoes of the great secret in his words.

"Yes, I know," she nearly whispered, not willing to get even that close to revealing all that she had learned or discovered. He nodded though, understanding her meaning as well.

"The Black Guardian will continue his assault, you must be strong, child," he warned and she sighed.

"What choice is there," she sighed out and he smiled at her.

"There is always a choice, you can always give up," he reminded with a look of quiet grief and Susan laughed.

"Have you met my family?" she asked, amusement bubbling up in her. "We're a rather stubborn lot!"

She woke still chuckling and shook her head on the pillow. Give up? Who did he think he was talking to? She turned to see her husband, curled up asleep beside her and nearly laughed again. When had any of them ever given up? Even when common sense and sanity dictated otherwise?

It just wasn't going to happen.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Generations

Donna Noble watched the children as they were playing and sighed a bit. She was enjoying dating Stuart and she was hopeful that he was eyeing her with matrimony in his eyes. She had always wanted nothing more than to be married, to have at least five gorgeous children, and to have the kind of love that Gramps and Gram had had.

Being around Susan, the Doctor, Rose, and the others though, it changed you. Even though she was well on her way to falling madly in love with Stuart, she wasn't in a hurry to marry him. He was nearly inarticulate with strangers, stuttering and shy, but cuddled up against her, he could be surprisingly eloquent. He'd lie there, reciting poetry to her as they lay wrapped around each other. When it wasn't his own words, he could speak without any hesitation. It was heart-breakingly sweet and he was so kind, so thoughtful, so gentle, it made her heart flop around in her chest just thinking about him.

She was content, though, to go slow. It occurred to her that her previous desperate desire for marriage and children had been a mask for the bone deep want to see and experience more of the world than she'd been allowed to so far. Looking out at the alien world around her, she grinned and nearly laughed aloud.

"Dynny?" the pale blue child, with her amphibian's eyes and sticky tongue, had trouble with vowels and Donna turned to listen to her attentively.

"What is it, Sptpt?" she asked. It always felt like she was spitting when she tried to say the names of any of the vaguely frog-like Typdygs. If a few years back someone had told her that she'd be baby-sitting an assortment of human and alien children she'd have laughed at them. Of course, she'd have laughed if they'd told her she'd be friends with Pete and Jackie Tyler, that she'd be travelling the world with Jackie and Harriet Jones, talking to world leaders and helping to convince them that the aliens in their midst were a benefit and an opportunity.

"Nyd mylk, plyss," Sptpt requested and Donna nodded, her brain automatically filling in the correct vowels as she stood and went to the chiller.

"Milk box," she told the machine and a silver panel opened and disgorged a box for her. She worked the straw for the child and handed it over. "There you go."

"Thynk yy," she responded politely and then hopped back to her playmates.

Myrdin and Rillmar were building a block tower to one side, Tony Tyler was sitting with Davian, working on a puzzle, Findarian, Jenny, and some of the other toddlers were lying on the floor, listening to K-9 tell a story. The robot dog was endlessly patient with them and seemed to enjoy their company, or at least his tail wagged a lot, which Donna hoped meant the same with him as it would have with a flesh and blood dog. All around her, children from half a dozen different races were playing, laughing, and talking. It was like a child-sized alien UN.

It hit her suddenly that the Doctor was far cleverer than she'd given him credit for. The school had been his idea. He was mixing all the children together, giving them a shared childhood as Gallifreyans, not just as members of one race or another. They saw each other as playmates, friends, fellow colonists, and as a small tribe of their very own. Whatever segregation that their parents might practice, their children would grow up as citizens of the universe.

That skinny little smear of nothing wasn't half smart. With a tiny smile on her face, she went to get one of the pale albino children some more crayons.

* * *

"Rose?" Susan's whispered voice caught her attention without waking Jenny, where she lay untidily sprawled on a pile of blankets and pillows, a pink stuffed hippo clutched to her.

Rose got up and silently made her way to the door of the study and stepped out to talk to Susan.

"Hey, how are things?" she asked Susan and the busty ginger sighed at her.

"Could be better, could be worse. Nothing is on fire, which is always good."

"Nothing's on fire? Then we're already ahead of most days," Rose quipped back with a tongue in teeth grin at her friend and step-granddaughter, who chuckled in reply. "I just wish my back wasn't trying to stab me to death," she muttered, her fingers trying vainly to relieve the weight of the baby she was carrying.

Susan frowned and fished around in her satchel. She pulled out a tiny silver disk and handed it to Rose.

"What's this?" she asked in perplexity and Susan frowned.

"I forget sometimes that you weren't born Gallifreyan, Malla does such a good job of clueing you in on most things. That's a tiny device that dampens pain and also sends calming messages to your muscles, telling them to relax and unclench," Susan explained.

"Blimey! I'd wear one all the time!" Rose exclaimed and Susan shook her head.

"No, it's for situations like these, when your body is a trifle overwhelmed. If you used it all the time, your body would forget how to do that for itself. What you need to be doing is taking better care of yourself," Susan scolded and Rose grinned at her.

"Yes, mother," she teased and Susan grimaced.

"How I ended up being the mature, responsible one in this family is beyond me!" she grumbled and Rose chuckled.

"Well, Susan, someone had to be and it certainly wasn't going to be your grandfather," she retorted with her grin growing wider and Susan shot her a rueful look.

"Too true," she sighed and shook her head.

* * *

The Doctor frowned down at the readings on his sonic and tried to find a bright side. He looked into the eyes of the very frightened young woman and realized that there just wasn't one.

"I'm so sorry, the bomb has been wired into your nervous system. It's very sophisticated work. You'd need a…," he paused and closed his eyes for a moment, feeling a trifle thick. He'd been alone too long, without the help of his own kind. "I can't get this bomb out of you, but I know someone who can. Just hold on!" he told her and sprinted out of the room and into the hallway. The room was shielded against all types of signal, so if he wanted to make this call, it would have to be done away from the victims.

* * *

Susan answered the phone with a distracted air, her mind mostly on the growing clones in the tanks in her lab.

"Susan?"

"Mmm, yes, Grandfather," she replied, still more interested in the correct expression of several alleles than the conversation.

"Susan, I need your help, there is a problem on Earth." His voice was strained and Susan's attention was suddenly engaged fully.

"What's wrong?" she asked and saw Martha's head whip around.

"The terrorists are back. They've kidnapped Torchwood and UNIT personnel and implanted bombs inside of them," he explained and her indrawn gasp had Harry, Rory, and Maria over to her side, faces worried. "We're at Torchwood 1."

"I'm on my way," she told him. She turned and looked at her crew with concern, her mind calculating her needs and weighing them against the danger.

"Rory, Martha, and Maria are coming with me, the rest of you hold down the fort. Harry, you're the most experienced genetic engineer, so I'm leaving you in charge of the clones. Reggie and Greg, you'll help Arthur with whatever he needs, and take care of any clinic patients that come in while, we're gone," she snapped out the orders as though she were still running a hospital ship, her mind working through the problems she could already see cropping up.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, his face still as he watched her.

"We are going to be surgically removing bombs from inside of people," she replied, rising and thinking about the equipment she would need. Rory gasped and she gave him a wry look. "I wouldn't take you, Rory, but you're the only surgical nurse I have," she explained and he nodded.

"I'd be furious if you didn't take me, Susan," he retorted and she smiled at him. He looked like such a goof, but he was incredibly brave and rock steady.

She raced around the room, gathering a few tools she suspected that she'd need and then heading for her TARDIS, the three others trailing behind her.

* * *

Kate Stewart was pacing back and forth, arms crossed and her face in a deep scowl. Susan, the doctors, and the nurse with her, had gone into the sealed, blast-proof room with the Doctor and shut the door firmly behind them. She could see and hear what was happening in the room through the monitors, but she was helpless to do anything.

Kate had never been very good at being helpless. Watching her people suffering and knowing that there was nothing she could do made her grind her teeth together in frustration.

"He's under," the nurse, Rory, told Susan and she nodded. The sterile surgical masks made them all a little alien just then.

"All right, Grandfather, I'm going to start the incision," Susan told the Doctor and they exchanged apprehensive glances.

"I hate this," Koschei muttered beside her and Kate nodded.

"Me too," she agreed. "I like to be doing things, not sitting around twiddling my thumbs," she growled and he gave her a look of mingled sympathy and amusement.

"The Doctor has more experience with these types of devices, otherwise I'd be in there with my wife," he informed her and she nodded, hearing the yearning in his voice and feeling a spurt of empathy for him. He was too dignified to press himself up against the monitor, but she could tell he was fighting the urge. "I don't understand, though, what the terrorists thought this would do."

"Well, they proved several things to us, they can kidnap our operatives off the street, they can implant very sophisticated devices in them and they can send them back here, forcing us to spend time, energy, money, and resources on getting the bombs out of them. We'd never have even known about the bombs, except that Dr. Yoshiko was testing out a new sonic scanner at the Torchwood 1 headquarters. Now, we will have to increase security, add another layer of scanning to all incoming visitors and employees, and all our people will have another thing to worry about. The safety of family members must now also be taken into account and that's another added burden on us," Kate explained and Koschei nodded.

"The Time War was horrendous, but it was a very straightforward sort of conflict in comparison to this. The Daleks attacked, we defended. Yes, the Daleks converted people into slaves, using Nanites to take over their minds and alter their bodies, but it wasn't exactly subtle," he sighed out and Kate looked at him in horror.

"They did what?" she gasped and he smiled, a sad, rather careworn smile.

"My specialty in the War was engineering anti-swarms, curing the people who'd been converted," he told her and she nodded. "It was fixable, if you caught it early enough," he continued, his eyes going bleak with memory.

"Honey, I'm doing delicate surgery here!" Susan snapped over the speaker and Koschei's eyes unfocused for a bit and he began to breathe deeply. "Thank you, that was very distracting."

Kate could feel her eyebrow climbing up her forehead and the skinny blond grinned at her.

"Telepathic link," he explained. "Let's talk about something happy."

"My son is coming for dinner tonight, I'm looking forward to it," she told him with a twitch of her lips. He chuckled.

"Sounds great, how old is he?"

"Twenty-six in September," she replied with a feeling of unreality. She could have sworn the boy had been born only last month, that if she turned around, he'd still be that small brown haired boy, holding her hand and looking up at her with trusting eyes.

"You don't look old enough to have a grown son," he told her the obligatory lie, with a small smile and a twinkle in his eye. She barked a laugh of genuine amusement.

"I bet you were quite the Lothario before Susan turned you all domestic," she teased. He grinned at her, his blue eyes bright and filled with sparkling depths.

"Perhaps, but I have to say, I rather love being domesticated," he confessed, his face going soft as he gazed at the monitor again.

"That's two," Susan muttered and Kate saw the while they'd been chatting, the first victim had been wheeled out to recovery.

"Only six more to go," the Doctor quipped, though even he looked a bit tense to Kate. She was starting to realize that anything that could dismay the Doctor would be a cause for screaming and panic from anyone else. To see him looking unhappy made her own heart stutter a bit.

"I'm fine," Susan assured him and Kate could see that she was actually in slightly better shape than her grandfather. Her expression was serene, her hand steady. "I forget that you've spent far less time in ERs than I have," she teased.

"I always tried to avoid them, actually," he bantered back, as they prepped the next patient for surgery.

"A very good idea," Rory chuckled. "Always avoid needing to be brought into an ER if you can manage it."

Kate tuned out the rest, watching as Koschei paced back and forth in the control room. In his black t-shirt and jeans, he looked out of place amongst all the uniforms and suits. He wasn't a particularly tall man and he was slender, wiry, and compact. Next to all the burly soldiers he looked surprisingly delicate. Yet, she knew he could probably bench press Col. Mace if he chose to.

"Koschei, how old are you?" she asked, suddenly curious about the other man. He flashed her a grin and shrugged.

"Let me do the math, hold on." He thought for a moment and then nodded. "Nine hundred, seventy-eight Earth years," he informed her and she blinked.

"Seriously?" she asked, her mind boggling a bit.

"Yup, not even hit middle aged for my kind either," he chuckled and she shook her head.

"We must all seem like children to you!" she protested and he looked at her, eyes gone serious and kind.

"No. I'm sad that I won't be able to have hundreds of years of friendship with you, but no one would ever mistake you for a child, Kate," he assured her. "You're willing to fight and die for a future you'll never see and that is really quite amazing."

Kate felt both honored and somewhat humbled by his words, not sure what to say to that. Together they turned and watched his wife and best mate trying to save the brief and fleeting lives of eight humans with all the will and intensity that she knew they would have given unstintingly to any one who came to them. If living hundreds of years made you this compassionate and kind, it couldn't be a bad thing at all.


End file.
